Exercises - Trials and Tabulations - HTML with Style

Trials and Tabulations

Exercises

That's all you need to know about tables, at least until a few
proper browsers appear on the market. But until then, try the
following to learn more about creating tables that work with browsers
and make sense at the same time:

Go to the HTML with Style front page and download the
source. You can remove the long scripts and CSS links at the top of
the document. If you examine the document, you'll see that it is a set
of nested DIV elements. CSS is used to create the layout you
see on the browser.

Remove the DIV elements and replace them with a table that
mimics this layout. Try different widths for the columns and see what
happens when you resize your browser window.

Take your latest bank statement and create a table with the
data. Use as many of the elements as you can; use Internet Explorer to
preview the table since it will recognize as many of the elements as
possible.

Now categorize your expenses into various categories, and make
appropriate TBODY sections for each. Now try inserting as much
meta-data into the table as you can think of, using the scope
and headers attributes generously. Try different methods of
supplying this information: Which is best? Which conveys the most
information? Which takes less typing? After you've gone over the top
with meta-info, try trimming down the amount to only that which you
think would be relevant in most circumstances. A good rule of thumb is
to have the meta-data take up about a quarter of the space of the
actual data. Now make your table render meaningfully (and, if
possible, beautifully) on both Navigator and Explorer.